Birthdays Are Pain
by kakashidiot
Summary: Kakashi's birthday. Will it go by uncelebrated as it has in the past? What love will do. RandR.


**Another Kakashi one-shot on birthdays since his is coming up soon!**

**YAY! A new reason to celebrate School and Fall!**

**THANK YOU TO ALL WHO REVIEW AND TO ALL WHO WILL REVIEW!**

**ENJOY!**

**Naruto and Kakashi do not belong to me! Good thing too!

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Birthday's Are Pain

He can live with it.

He doesn't know any better. He honestly doesn't. So when it comes to things like birthday parties and anniversaries, he's just not there. And it's not really his fault because he's so screwed up – after all, he grew up in a house of mourning and afterwards, a house of ghosts.

That's why he never really remembers and it takes several people (like Asumo, Genma and Raido) to get him there somehow (never on time). And it's not because he's selfish.

Oh no.

After all, he never celebrates his own birthday and never expects people to join him in his annual mourning days. He is a private person, used to rejection and isolation. Used to a life with a wasted father, used to life in a faceless unit, used to a life of solo missions.

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He watches Shizune light the kage's birthday candles – a tactful dozen to signify sixty some decades – and realizes that he's lit campfires, forest fires, town fires and bombs but has never really lit the candles of a cake.

He watches Tsunade cut the cake – a very large piece went to Jiraiya and Naruto – and realizes that he's cut throats, heads, hearts, traps, bomb wires and even ties with the past but he has never cut a birthday cake before.

He watches the kage open her presents – he had put money in for a large impersonal gift from the division of Special Jounins – and realizes that the only gifts he got had been unwrapped, hastily shoved into his hands on the brink of war.

Item: One special kunai with talisman, one medic pack, one Sharingan, one tanto blade.

And the givers are dead.

But he's not complaining – after all, he wanted it this way. He never talked about his birth date and always disappeared when the conversations in the teacher's lounge or the Jounin staff room turned personal.

A few people probably knew. After all, one couldn't really lie in one's files. Everything was there to be seen – if you had the clearance for it….

Nobody did. And nobody remembered to ask him either.

And he liked it that way. In a way, he supposed.

He was a shinobi of Konoha, which meant he never let his teammates die – a hard learnt lesson when he was young – but that never meant that the three young people who fought by him, protected him, saved him, stressed him out and often needed rescuing were his friends.

What was a friend?

He knew he was fucked up. But watching yet another party, he realized how fucked up he was. What horrified him was the fact that his cold, uncaring heart just didn't seem to get up the gumption to care.

No. He didn't hate the idea of celebrating, rather, he was apathetic. It was not necessary.

The horror that grew in him reminded him of the old days.

The old days when he would come home from an especially grueling mission, and stashing away his blade, his ivory mask and his ANBU uniform, he would wrap himself up and, finding the showers, would stand underneath the pelting water and would just shake – because hewassocoldsofrozeninside although his mind was still stuck in a warm welter of blood which ghostlike remained on his hands – it was the chidori thrust through the chest of an innocent man, who just happened to be the 'target'.

Why?

Who knew. Somebody on the desk did.

The idea of him holding hands, hugging as Tsunade did – saying goodbye, saying thank you – was so farfetched. His personal space after all was a good three feet around him.

Who would come to celebrate the birth of a monster?

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So Kakashi left, as quietly as he came, smiling a smile and shaking hands with the Hokage, who gave him a squeeze on the shoulder, as she remembered who he was (Sakumo's brat, Jiraiya's student's student, top ninja of Konoha, Naruto's sensei) and Kakashi knew that she only saw him through the rose-coloured glasses of other people: other people who had thought that he had the brightest future of them all.

Kakashi walked home alone.

He liked it that way.

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The day his birthday came around, he slept in, savoring the day off – his team was on its own, a novelty for him.

And although he tried to deny it, a part of him, that traitorous part which he denied for, oh, so long, worried a little for his rag-tag team still learning to work together, learning to work around the scars of separation.

The day was spent in a short B-rank, which he completed within several hours and by the time night rode around, he was ready for a couple drinks.

The memorial had seen enough wear and tear that day.

He enjoyed the dark corner of the bar and the anonymity that it provided him – and when he had drunk enough (not too much, he had to take himself home tonight), his friends came in.

They tried to make him stay, but he gently refused.

Genma met him outside.

"Nice night, eh?"

"Yeah."

"Great for celebration…"  
"If you say so."

Kakashi leapt away, wondering if Genma knew. He had the sufficient clearance after all.

Genma went inside and mentioned to Asumo that Kakashi was more quiet than normal (rather record-breaking) but then, wasn't he always like that when his birthday came around? He was what? Thirty-ish?

Genma is close.

Thirty. But Kakashi feels like he is clocking a hundred.

The others don't know what to say, but sit back and think on it for all of six seconds before returning to their talk.

But they all remember.

And they wonder why Kakashi hasn't said anything about it for all these years.

They decide the next day, each of them, to do something.

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They all react in shock, in their special way.

And they turn to each other for help.

Asumo and Kurenai decide to combine money (with a little help from their teams) to get the silver-haired ninja a whole new set of weaponry. Kakashi is a practical kind of guy, so they get him what most ninjas like.

Raido and Genma give him a gift certificate from the local bookstore which specializes in romance novels. Okay, so pandering to Kakashi's obsession isn't probably that healthy – but hey, the guy needs a break every now and then.

Shizune, Kotetsu and Izumo also combine money to get a nice collection of sake. Perhaps the man would share it with them?

Naruto bought him Ichiraku Ramen gift notes, for what is better in this world than ramen?

Sasuke gives him a book on strategies, although he knows Kakashi probably made a few of them himself.

Gai, a spandex suit – in black – the green look was HIS trademark.

Sakura, a couple of nice blue-grey shirts to wear for casual days. Although she knew that Kakashi's casual days were spent in front of the memorial and not as it should be, in front of his friends.

Iruka gave him a new scarf, another bamboo plant (Mrs. Ukki) and a huge tin of cookies.

And a scrapbook.

And the scrapbook is the gift from everyone.

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Kakashi, when he arrived in the Academy the next day, found Shizune's gift and Tsunade's congratulations (she was a little miffed he said nothing) waiting for him.

To say he was stunned was an understatement.

He said thank you, blinked and fled – Tsunade's gift was the day off.

He couldn't avoid Genma and Raido hanging around in the hallway. He is stunned – but things are beginning to make sense as he thinks things through with his analytical mind.

Genma.

He'd kill him.

Well, after he thanked him for the gift.

The gift….

Oh. Well…. Perhaps killing the guy was too extreme….

After dropping his things off at home, he went to meet his Team to tell them that they had the day off.

Why? He thought up a plausible excuse, which they would just have to believe.

He was glad that they didn't hang in the circles of the senior Jounins.

But his innermost fears were well-founded.

On the bridge, Naruto and Sasuke were squabbling about who's gift was the best, while Sakura balanced a flat box on her head.

For one moment, Kakashi considered fleeing the scene (why hadn't he foreseen it? Genma Asumo,Kurenai,Gai Rookie Nine Team 7) but Sasuke spotted his distinct chakra flare.

So Kakashi, always priding himself on being the ninja who followed through on all things bravely, stepped forward and received his gifts.

All wrapped up.

All precious.

None of them, he deserved.

But the ramen would come in handy. And the book on strategies looked interesting. And the shirts….. well…. That was just an unspoken challenge on Sakura's part for him to get himself a social life.

He didn't think that was going to happen any time soon (who would want to date a monster?) but it was the thought that counted.

After his good news (they didn't believe his excuse: slow at the desk), they decided to treat him out to ramen, where they found everybody waiting for them with a cake.

It had all been set up.

Overnight.

It was amazing, really. But that's the shinobi world for you.

Kakashi wondered what his team would say. What the Yondaime would say.

They'd all probably say, 'finally!' and encourage him to step forward.

After all, he was living for them and they were no longer celebrated except in memory every so often when people looked at the memorial and vaguely thanked the heroes who had saved their village again and again.

They would want him to step forward, as they never can, and blow out the candles, cut the cake and open the remaining presents.

And Iruka's scrapbook – put together, frantically (from the speed of the handwriting), he supposed, overnight – of life and him and Konoha.

Old photos. Yellow Flash and Kakashi buried in a Chuunin's vest. Yellow Flash, Sakumo, Tsunade, Jiraiya and Orochimaru standing on the platform, lounging. Sakumo and Jiraiya posing wildly for the camera as they stood atop the bathing springs. Kakashi Hayate and Hayate's girlfriend in front of the memorial. Kakashi, Hayate, Asumo, Gai and Genma all rather drunk at a bar. Genma and Raido and Kakashi stuck in between obviously being felt up. Obito and Kakashi and Rin: Rin grinning as Obito was trying to hold down Kakashi under a fountain. Naruto, Kakashi, Sasuke and Sakura. Sitting in a field. Kakashi and Iruka at the Ramen shop.

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He looks through them carefully that night. Much slower and the soundtrack is crickets and the sound of his tiny fridge humming.

They are still seconds – flashes really – of something he had never been aware of before – something although denied had suddenly been revealed on the day after his birthday.

Something so big that even he, with his Sharingan, couldn't see it before.

He had told Sasuke that all those he cared for were dead and that he was lucky to be where he was.

It's wasn't entirely true.

This day was red-letter for him.

The sake was gone (mainly down the throats of his friends), the ramen notes and books would fade, the shirts would never probably be worn (old habits die hard) and the weaponry would eventually dull forever.

But one thing would never fade.

The realization that love had crept up on him – it was something nobody could resist – and it felt so good.

They know he's got issues (they're the ones who drag him around to the parties), that he's eternally screwed (Ibiki and all ANBU know this well) and that deep inside him lies a capable killing monster (and Tsunade approves) – but still…. Through it all…. They love him.

A comforting thought which gives him the strength to survive another day.

And he can live with that.


End file.
